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Previous What's New Items

The 2010 NAMCS Public Use Micro-Data File and documentation are now available for downloading. SAS files for reading and formatting the data are also available, with SPSS and Stata files to come soon. The 2010 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use micro-data files and documentation should be available in the near future. (6/2012)

2010 NAMCS data are now available for use in the NCHS Research Data Center (RDC). Please refer to RDC website, or contact the Ambulatory and Hospital Care Statistics Branch for more information. (5/2012)

New NAMCS and NHAMCS Factsheets are available with 2009 data. These factsheets are available for each physician specialty sampled in NAMCS, and for hospital outpatient and emergency departments in NHAMCS. (3/2012)

The Ambulatory Care Drug Database has been updated to reflect 2009 NAMCS and NHAMCS data. The database provides a look up tool for all of the drugs in NAMCS and NHAMCS along with their characteristics. (12/2011)

The 2009 NHAMCS Emergency Department Public Use File has been updated to include a change to the visit disposition variable ADMITHOS (admit to this hospital). Original file data are correct, but it was discovered that some researchers were not aware that the disposition OBSHOS (admitted to observation unit, then hospitalized) should also be used to capture visits resulting in hospital admission. To simplify matters, we have edited ADMITHOS to "Yes" whenever OBSHOS is "Yes." Therefore, ADMITHOS will now reflect all visits resulting in hospital admission, either directly or through the observation unit. A note regarding this change has also been added to the Public Use Data File Documentation. Researchers using the original version of the file who are interested in hospital admissions need only select records where ADMITHOS is "Yes" or OBSHOS is "Yes" to capture all hospital admissions. (9/2011)

SPSS syntax files for 2007, 2008, and 2009 NAMCS and NHAMCS Public Use Data Files are now available for downloading. (9/2011)

A new 1998 NHAMCS Outpatient Department Public Use File is now available for downloading. It includes corrections to the CHOLEST variable and the POPSUM variable. (9/2011)

2009 NHAMCS Public Use Micro-Data Files are Available!The 2009 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey Emergency and Outpatient Department Public Use Micro-Data Files and documentation are now available for downloading. SAS files for reading and formatting the data are also available, with Stata and SPSS files to come soon. (7/2011)

2009 NAMCS Public Use Micro-Data File is Available!The 2009 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey Public Use Micro-Data File and documentation are now available for downloading. SAS files for reading and formatting the data are also available, with SPSS and Stata files to come soon. The 2009 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use micro-data files and documentation should be available in the near future. (5/2011)

A revision has been made to the CSTRATM variable for a hospital on the 2003 NHAMCS Outpatient Department Public Use File. This was done to correct the occurrence of a singleton (single case stratum) which caused problems when trying to compute variances with statistical software. (4/2011)

A revision has been made to the CPSUM variable on the 2006, 2007, and 2008 NAMCS Public Use Files. A problem has recently been discovered with the CPSUM design variable which causes underestimation of variance for some estimates. This issue only affects visits in a subset of community health centers, specifically, those in which more than one physician participated in the NAMCS in a given year. Because visits to community health centers account for such a small percentage of NAMCS visits in these years, the problem is restricted to a small proportion of weighted visits overall (about 1% each year), but the impact will be more deeply felt when analyzing visits to community health centers separately. The percent of weighted visits to community health centers requiring modification of the CPSUM variable each year ranged from 39-50%. The CPSUM variable has been modified, and revised public use files for 2006, 2007, and 2008 NAMCS are now available. (3/2011)

Revised SAS Input Statements for 1995 and 1996 NAMCS and NHAMCS-OPD Public Use Files Are now Available. It has recently come to our attention that the SAS input statements for these files contained a missing dot in the entries for four variables: BLODLEAD, CHOLEST, MRI, and OTHCOUN. Such an error would not abort the program, but would result in incorrect data being displayed for these four variables. The SAS input statements have been corrected and are available now. (3/2011)

2008 NHAMCS Public Use Micro-Data Files are Available!
The 2008 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use micro-data files and documentation are now available for downloading. SAS files for reading and formatting the data are also available. Researchers should note that data on outpatient and emergency department use of electronic medical records will be added in coming weeks. (9/2010)

2008 NAMCS Public Use Micro-Data File is Available!
The 2008 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use micro-data file and documentation are now available for downloading. SAS files for reading and formatting the data are also available. The 2008 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use micro-data files and documentation should be available in the near future. (9/2010)

2007 NHAMCS Public Use Micro-Data Files and Documentation Have Been Re-released to Include Electronic Medical Records Data!SAS files for reading and formatting the data are also available. SPSS and Stata files will be added at a later date. (7/2010)

New Stata .do and .dct files for 2005 and 2006 NAMCS have been uploaded to correct a few problems. We expect to have 2007 Stata datasets available in the near future. (7/2010)

Re-release of 1992 NHAMCS ED/OD public-use filesThe 1992 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey Emergency Department and Outpatient Department public use micro-data files have been re-released to include masked sample design variables and are now available for downloading. Please be sure to download the new
supplemental documentation file (supp92.pdf) [PDF - 40 KB], which explains the new variables and other minor modifications to the file, and which should be used in conjunction with the original documentation file.
SAS files for reading and formatting the data are also available. The 1992 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use micro-data file will be re-released with masked design variables at a later date.
See
Questionnaires, Datasets, and Related Documentation to download the
appropriate files. (1/28/2009)

Stata datasets for the 2007 NAMCS and NHAMCS public
use files have been temporarily removed. It has recently
come to our attention that some variables were coded as
numeric in the 2005 and 2006 Stata datasets, but as
character (string) variables in 2007, causing problems
when combining Stata datasets across multiple years. We
are seeking to correct this problem and apologize for
any inconvenience. (3/2010)

2007 NHAMCS Public Use Micro-Data Files Are Available!
The 2007 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
public use micro-data files
and documentation
are now available for downloading.
SAS files for reading and formatting the data are also available. SPSS and Stata files will be added at a later date. Researchers should note that data on emergency and outpatient department use of electronic medical records are not available at this time. Once those data become available, the files will be re-released to include them. (9/2009)

2007 NAMCS Public Use Micro-Data File is Available!The 2007 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
public use micro-data file and
documentation are now available for downloading.
SAS files for reading and formatting the data are also available. SPSS and Stata files will be added at a later date. The 2007 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use micro-data files and documentation have been delayed, but should be available in the near future. (8/2009)

Stata Files for 2006 Are Now Available!Stata .do and .dct files are now available for the 2006 NAMCS and NHAMCS public use files. As with the 2005 data release, STATA users also have the option to download fully prepared Stata datasets (these are .exe files, which will uncompress to .dta files) rather than having to create their own files. (2/2009)

The 2006 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use micro-data file and the 2006 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use data files are now available for downloading. Please be sure to download the documentation files as well. SAS, Stata, and SPSS files for reading and formatting the data are also available. (7/11/2008)

The 2005 NAMCS and NHAMCS CD-ROMs with SETS retrieval software are now available. (1/15/08)

New emergency department files for 2005 (ED2005.exe and ED05-stat.exe) are now available for downloading. These files correct a recently discovered problem with the verbatim reason for visit item. (8/29/07)

SAS code to produce aggregated visit statistics at the physician level (for NAMCS) and the outpatient or emergency department level (for NHAMCS) is now available.

With the release of the 2005 public use files, provider weights became available for the first time. There are a number of variables on the files that pertain directly to characteristics of the physician or department, and basic instructions for using the provider weights with these variables can be found in the 2005 public use file documentation. However, there may be cases where researchers wish to link visit characteristics with providers and produce aggregated statistics at the provider level. This is a more complicated process, and is explained in this document. (7/3/2007)

The 2005 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use micro-data file and the 2005 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use data files are now available for downloading. Please be sure to download the documentation files as well. SAS, Stata, and SPSS files for reading and formatting the data are also available. (5/17/2007)

The 2003 NHAMCS CD-ROM with SETS retrieval software is now available! (7/21/2006)

The 2003 NAMCS CD-ROM with SETS retrieval software is now available! (7/14/2006)

The 2004 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use micro-data file and the 2004 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use data files are now available for downloading. Please be sure to download the documentation files as well. SAS, Stata, and SPSS files for reading and formatting the data are also available (3/20/2006)

The 2003 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey ant the 2003 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use micro-data files are now available for downloading. Please be sure to download the documentation files as well. SAS, Stata, and SPSS files for reading and formatting the data are also available. (7/19/2005)

The 2002 NHAMCS 2002 CD-ROM with SETS retrieval software is now available! (11/3/2004)

The 1993 and 1994 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey public use data files have been re-released and are now available for downloading. (1993 and 1994 NAMCS public use files had been re-released previously.) Please be sure to download the newly revised supplemental documentation file that discusses important changes made to the 1993 and 1994 files and discusses guidelines for variance estimation with SUDAAN, SAS, SPSS, and Stata. SAS input statements, variable labels and value labels are also available for these years. (9/29/2004)

The 2002 NAMCS 2002 CD-ROM with SETS retrieval software Notice to SUDAAN users: The 2002 NAMCS public use file has been modified slightly to resolve a problem found when running SUDAAN version 8.0.2 and higher. This problem only appears when using the WOR (without replacement) design option with multi-level design variables and may cause the program to abort. For those using the SUDAAN WR (with replacement) option or other analytic software packages using an ultimate cluster model for variance estimation (for example, SAS, Stata, and SPSS), there should be no problem using the original version of the 2002 NAMCS public use file, so you do not need to replace your file with this new release. (9/29/2004)

The 2002 NAMCS 2002 CD-ROM with SETS retrieval software is now available! (8/26/2004)

2002 NAMCS and NHAMCS Public-Use Files Are Now Available! The public-use micro-data files, general documentation, and SAS documentation are currently
available for downloading. Also available for the first time is program documentation for SPSS and Stata users. (5/21/04)

New data release! The 2001 NAMCS and NHAMCS CD-ROMs with SETS retrieval software are now available! (3/19/04)

The 2001 NAMCS and NHAMCS public-use data files and documentation are now available for downloading! (9/10/03)

Announcing the Release of Enhanced 1993 and 1994 NAMCS Public-Use Files! (3/21/02)We are pleased to announce that new NAMCS public use files for 1993 and 1994 are available for downloading from the CDC ftp server that contain, for the first time, sample design variables in masked form. This new information will allow researchers to use sophisticated statistical software like SUDAAN and STATA that take the complex design of the survey into account. The files names and file layouts are essentially the same as previously published, but the design variables have been appended to each file according to a generic file layout that is also available for downloading. The supplemental file documentation not only contains the file layout but also a description of various minor revisions to some of the datasets. We are currently working on the re-release of NHAMCS public use files for these survey years.

Announcing the Release of Enhanced 1995 and 1996 NAMCS and NHAMCS Public-Use Files! (9/19/02)
We are pleased to announce that new NAMCS and NHAMCS public use files for 1995 and 1996 are available for downloading from the CDC ftp server that contain, for the first time, sample design variables in masked form. This new information will allow researchers to use sophisticated statistical software like SUDAAN and STATA that take the complex design of the survey into account. The files names and file layouts are essentially the same as previously published, but the design variables have been appended to each file according to a generic file layout that is also available for downloading. The supplemental file documentation not only contains the file layout but also a description of various minor revisions to some of the datasets. We are currently working on the re-release NAMCS and NHAMCS public use files for survey years from 1989-1994.

Expanded SAS Documentation Now Available for 1995 and 1996 Public Use Files (9/19/02)
As part of our re-release efforts for 1995 NAMCS and NHAMCS, we are pleased to offer not only input statements, but also SAS code for variable labels, value labels, and format assignments. These new files are available for downloading from the CDC ftp server. Please try them out!

Staff Presentations from the 2002 NCHS Data Users Conference Are Now Available (7/28/02)

2000 NAMCS and NHAMCS CD-ROMs are Now Available! (7/25/02)

Ambulatory Care Drug Database System Now Available with Data for 2000! (6/20/02)This query system allows you to search for drugs mentioned in the NAMCS and NHAMCS by entry name, by generic name, and by ingredients. It can provide information on drug characteristics including therapeutic class, composition status, prescription status, and control status. It will also give data on frequencies of drug mentions in 2000.

2000 NAMCS and NHAMCS Public Use Files are Now Available for Downloading! (4/19/02)We are pleased to announce the initial release of the NAMCS and NHAMCS public use files for 2000, which may be downloaded from the CDC ftp server. In addition to our standard data items, these files contain sample design variables in masked form which will allow researchers to use sophisticated statistical software like SUDAAN and STATA that take the complex design of the survey into account. General documentation is also downloadable for the 2000 NAMCS and NHAMCS. In addition to the general file documentation, we also have enhanced SAS documentation for 2000 NAMCS and NHAMCS which includes input statements, value labels, variable labels, and form assignments.

Announcing the Release of Enhanced NAMCS and NHAMCS Public-Use Files! (2/13/02)We are pleased to announce that new NAMCS and NHAMCS public use files for 1997, 1998, and 1999 are available for downloading from the CDC ftp server that contain, for the first time, sample design variables in masked form. This new information will allow researchers to use sophisticated statistical software like SUDAAN and STATA that take the complex design of the survey into account. The files names and file layouts are essentially the same as previously published, but the design variables have been appended to each file according to a generic file layout that is also available for downloading. The supplemental file documentation not only contains the file layout but also a description of various minor revisions to some of the datasets. We are currently working on the re-release NAMCS and NHAMCS public use files for survey years from 1989-1996.

Expanded SAS Documentation Now Available for 1997-1999 Public Use Files (2/13/02)In the past, we provided only SAS input statements for NAMCS and NHAMCS public use files. Now we are pleased to offer not only input statements, but also SAS code for variable labels, value labels, and format assignments. These new files are available for downloading from the CDC ftp server. Please try them out! We are also hoping to develop similar products for SPSS users. If you would like to be a beta tester for our SPSS documentation, let us know.

1973-1992 NAMCS Public-Use Files are Now Available for Downloading (5/12/01)As a result of customer requests, we have established an ftp site where researchers can download NAMCS public-use data files from survey years 1973, 1975-1981, 1985, and 1989-1992. Also available are the drug files for 1980, 1981, 1985, and 1989-1991. Files with a D in the filename denote the drug files. File documentation for each year is available in pdf format and can be downloaded from the same address. The public-use files are in self-extracting compressed format, same as our current downloadable files, and a readme file is available at the same address with instructions for opening the files. These data files and documentation will be made available to users on CD-ROM in ASCII format in the future.